that body of Christians whose system of religious doctrine originated with Luther. They are more nearly allied to the Romanists in point of doctrine than are any of the churches of the Reformation. Luther maintained the doctrine of consubstantiation, or the real simultaneous coexistence of the body and blood with the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper. As to the use of ceremonies and forms, there is considerable license permitted among the Lutherans. They accordingly, differ much in the number and nature of their public rites. The general form of government in the Lutheran church is intermediate between the Episcopal and Presbyterian systems. From a misapplication of the doctrine that Christians are accountable to God alone for their religious sentiments, there is a considerable degree of liberty given to their teachers in relation to the symbolical books. These are the three ancient Creeds, the Augsburg Confession, the Articles of Smalcald, the larger and smaller Catechisms of Luther, and the Form of Concord. The fullest edition is that of Hase, by Francke, entitled Libri Symbolici Ecc. Lutheri, cum Appendice Quinqueparitita, Leipsic, 1847.

The Lutheran church prevails in Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Their existence as a distinct body among the adherents of the Reformed cause dates strictly from the publication of the Formula Concordia in 1580. This act divided the church of Germany into Lutherans and Calvinists, and each of the two branches began from that time forward to have a separate history. Various efforts were made to heal this division, but in vain, until in 1817, when a somewhat mechanical union was effected on the basis of a declaration promulgated by a synod convened by royal authority at Berlin. Since that time the two confessions have been held within the pale of the same church, and not unfrequently been preached by collegiate ministers within the same walls; and in the perplexity of such virtual disunion, many of the most gifted minds in Germany have addressed themselves to the task of finding some higher exposition of truth which shall include and combine the two phases of Reformed doctrine. This has led to a keen discussion in regard to the nature of the differentiating element in the two systems; and the simple enumeration of the formulas which Lutherans themselves have given, will tend to show the disturbing force which one anomalous doctrine has exercised in breaking up the common faith of the two great Reformers.

One scheme of difference points to the original dispute. As the first quarrel arose in regard to a passage of Scripture (and Lutheranism has developed itself in a long series of diverging exegetical systems), the disturbing force is traced to a fundamental difference in regard to the relation of reason to Scripture. The Reformed church is charged with exalting reason above the mysteries of revelation, which the Lutheran church receives in their simple and naked antagonism to the comprehensive powers of the human intellect. In this view the controversy between the Lutheran and Reformed systems is the same in kind, although not in intensity, as that which is waged between the Reformed party and the Church of Rome.

A second scheme points to a difference in original purpose. The Lutheran Reformation aimed at countering a Jewish element in Catholicism, and in this one-sided purpose unconsciously received a Gnosticizing tone; while the Calvinistic scheme, in combating a purely heathen element in the papacy, unconsciously fell, at least in its ethical creed, into a Judaizing cast of thought. Another formula defines the Lutheran church as the church of theologians, giving prominence to an objective theology, and the Calvinists as the church of collective believers, giving undue prominence to a subjective anthropology. In antagonism to this is another scheme, which defines Lutheranism as an anthro-